Hilary Mantel won the inaugural Walter Scott prize in 2010 with Wolf Hall; since then, the winners have been Andrea Levy's The Long Song and On Canaan's Side by Sebastian Barry. Of this year's shortlist, all I've read so far is the Anthony Quinn which is very good indeed but to my mind lacks something of the finesse of his earlier book Half of the Human Race (which I wrote about here). On a superficial level, is not the paperback cover
for the Rose Tremain very lovely?

Hilary Mantel won the inaugural Walter Scott prize in 2010 with Wolf Hall; since then, the winners have been Andrea Levy's The Long Song and On Canaan's Side by Sebastian Barry. Of this year's shortlist, all I've read so far is the Anthony Quinn which is very good indeed but to my mind lacks something of the finesse of his earlier book Half of the Human Race (which I wrote about here). On a superficial level, is not the paperback cover
for the Rose Tremain very lovely?